Assessment technology - helping you understand people

Test use and employment equity

Certification is no longer a requirement for tests to be used in employment situations

On 2 May 2017, Judge Mali delivered a judgment overturning section 8(d) of the amended Employment equity Act. Thus it is no longer a requirement for tests that are used in employment settings to be classified and certified.

It is still necessary to demonstrate that the tests are reliable, valid, not biased, and that they can be used fairly.

This is a positive development for Psytech SA as a test publisher. Although we have gone to extreme lengths to be compliant with the requirement to have tests classified, we have experienced the classification and certification process to be extremely onerous, lengthy and lacking in transparency.

The prohibition on the use of tests that have not been certified has had a negative effect on our ability to verify the predictive validity of tests in employment situations. If you may not use the test, how will you ever know of it predicts job performance? This difficulty has now been eliminated. We call on test users to collaborate with us on predictive validation studies.

We shall continue to update our research to ensure that the tests we sell meet the requirements to be used.

Tests will now be made available to registered professionals once we have verified the psychometric properties. Since we only sell to registered psychology professionals, we feel that our users are competent to judge whether a test is suitable to be used.